- Rep. Tom McClintock on Monday told NewsNation his opposition to impeaching Mayorkas has not shifted.
- "The Constitution hasn’t changed since last week, so my vote is not going to change,” he said.
Rep. Tom McClintock, the California lawmaker who last week was one of only three House Republicans to oppose the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said on Monday that his stance on the issue remained unchanged.
During an interview on NewsNation's "The Hill," McClintock defended his position ahead of a likely Tuesday evening vote on the matter, arguing that the GOP-led effort to remove Mayorkas would only lead to similar impeachment pushes in the future.
“Well, the Constitution hasn’t changed since last week, so my vote is not going to change,” the congressman said. “These are the same reasons I vigorously opposed the sham impeachments of Donald Trump."
“It dumbs down the standard for impeachment and assures it’s going to become a constant fixture in our national life whenever the White House is held by one party and in the Congress by the other,” he continued.
Congressional Republicans over the past year have grown increasingly incensed with Mayorkas over the elevated level of apprehensions at the US-Mexico border.
McClintock said on NewsNation that despite his policy differences with Mayorkas, those issues did not clear the bar to warrant impeachment.
McClintock has rejected what he said is an "expansive view of impeachment" being taken by the GOP-controlled House Homeland Security Committee regarding the secretary, arguing that Republicans shouldn't "abuse" the Constitution in order to tackle border security.
"Mayorkas is guilty of maladministration on a cosmic scale, but that's not grounds for impeachment," McClintock told NewsNation. "We know that because the founders specifically considered it and rejected it."
"Instead, they chose the very narrow grounds of high crimes and misdemeanors," he continued. "They didn't want policy and political disputes to be turned into impeachments."
Despite the high-stakes nature of the vote, McClintock told NewsNation that House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana didn't "pressure" him when they spoke about the vote.
"Mike called me. I explained my reasons. He was very respectful of them, and that was it," McClintock said. "I have not had any pressure put on me."
Last week, the Mayorkas impeachment vote failed 214-216, with McClintock and GOP Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and Blake Moore of Utah voting against the secretary's impeachment. (In a procedural move, Moore switched his vote from "yes" to "no" vote to allow the GOP to bring the measure up for a new vote.)
But with the return of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Republicans are aiming to succeed in a second Mayorkas vote.
Republicans have long hammered President Joe Biden and his administration over immigration, and former President Donald Trump has sought to use the issue as the focal point of his 2024 campaign. Trump, in recent weeks, blasted a Senate border security package that had been brokered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers for months and would have overhauled the US asylum system; the bill failed in a 49-50 vote last week.